Introduction to Darwinism
by sarcastronaut
Summary: Post-Goliath. Alek is eager to impress Deryn when she asks him to try and embrace the Darwinist culture, but what initially seemed like a small boring project suddenly becomes too much for an average Clanker to take.


It was just a seed – a small, wrinkled piece of matter covered in dirt that Deryn kept trapped between her thin, long fingers right in front of Alek's puzzled face.

It's never easy when your fiancée is Scottish, he noted with an inner sigh for the hundredth time. You could expect practically anything at any given moment, from making out in an empty room of the British Foreign Office to getting bruised during a fencing practice that went a little bit too far and turned into a boxing match. If someone had once told Alek that he'd give his future empire away for a girl, he would have imagined it would be some gentle, noble princess with classical Clanker education whose interests would include poetry, fortepiano and being witty in a non-threatening way. Having met and known Deryn, however, he could no longer imagine falling for any girl who wore dresses, let alone everything else.

"What is this?" asked Alek warily, putting away the Austrian newspaper he was reading during breakfast just moments ago, before Deryn suddenly walked in the room, half-perched on the table with every possible disregard to etiquette and started shoving the seed towards his eyes.

"You can't be so bent on your sodding machinery not to know, can you?" she winked. "It's a seed, you daftie! Plants grow out of these wee things."

"Very well, is it a part of my breakfast now?"

Deryn just wouldn't stop moving her hand and rolling the seed between her fingers, apparently to let him see it better but in fact completely eliminating such a possibility, so Alek gently took her hand in both of his to keep it steady.

"Aye, as if I'm ever serving breakfast for the likes of you," she said, making a hilarious grimace of a gravely insulted person.

"What's it all about, then?"

"Well…" her mischievous blue eyes found his and after a little pause she continued, "let's say I'm concerned about someone's ideological innards. You take a barking Clanker, you bring him to your home – well, London, technically, but you know what I mean – and after more than a year he still thinks that nuts are first and foremost the wee metal thingies one puts on bolts, not what gave the nut-tree its name".

"This is not true at all," protested Alek, but when Deryn went on a proper rant, it took a world war or another Scotsman to shut her up, neither of which he could conjure up at that particular moment.

"And you keep tinkering with engines and gears all the time, and you keep suggesting Clanker improvements to everything you see, and when you see a lovely flowerbed, your usual comment is "Ja, das ist kute, but Ich can make a better van wiz Brass and some Shprings"…"

Alek sniggered: it was nothing like his usual comment and her voice was nothing like a proper German accent (more like that of a Scottish person about to drown in sand), but the combination of the two was disarmingly charming.

"Ach, don't you laugh at me now, you daftie!" Deryn frowned with exaggerated seriousness. "What I mean is, of course it's your nature, I knew what I was signing up for, agreeing to marry a sodding bag of gears like you, but I still hope, you know, that you'll try and grow real close to our ways as well, or at least give them a chance to impress you."

"So the seed is…"

"It's your new project!" Deryn beamed at him as her hand wriggled free of his grasp and once again began to spin the seed, this time with the help of its twin sister. "No wrenches and screws required – isn't it exciting? I'm sure Dr. Barlow wouldn't mind if you were to perform one of those experimental operations on a rat or a mouse…"

"Moose?" Alek asked, feeling nausea swelling up somewhere within him like it did every time he imagined taking any direct participation in Darwinist experiments. At least by now it didn't bother him when he saw the end products, which was quite an indication of how far he'd managed to go from the strict doctrine of his homeland.

"What moose? 'Mouse'!"

"You said 'moose'".

"Oh, barking spiders, is it my accent again, after all these months?" Deryn rolled her eyes upwards. "Shut yer gob, you're murdering my joke. Anyway, my point is, she probably wouldn't mind you meddling with a wee beastie but something tells me we'd better begin with something simpler for you to appreciate the art of Darwinist philosophy".

"Oh, we'd better," quickly assured her Alek.

"So here's this seed that you will put in a wee pot, water it from time to time, make sure it gets enough sunlight and just keep it alive, hopefully," she smirked. "If you do everything correctly, something might even grow out of it. It's quite a daft plant, mind, it's very easy to give it too much water or too little water, and it won't like that one bit. It reacts pretty quickly to the temperature shifts as well, so you'll have to keep it content or see it wither away. It's one of those plants we Darwinists try to create improved versions of, but this one – it's as naughty as mother nature made it. I'm going to check up on you but don't expect me to lend you a hand or anything, your princeliness – it's gonna be your responsibility and yours alone. Now, what do you think about this wee plan of mine?"

She asked this while taking his hand in hers and putting the seed inside it, so declining the honour obviously wasn't an option.

Alek let the seed fall into his palm and lifted it to his eyes to study it suspiciously once again. He stole a glance at Deryn, who still half-sat on the table with the look of expectation in her impish blue eyes.

"Well, I can do it, I suppose," he finally said.

Deryn jumped off the table, walked to the spot behind his chair and hugged his neck from behind.

"Who said you cannae, it just never occured to you to do it on your own, right? And afterwards, if you get into this organic business, who knows, maybe you will yet surprise us all with a beastie of your own creation!"

"Yes, there's no doubting that. There's just one zing I'd like to kleer up," said Alek, theatrically frowning at the seed and exaggerating his pronounciation. "How much machine oil vill zis 'plant' need?.."

"Ach, you daft Clanker!" giggled Deryn and ruffled his hair affectionately.

* * *

It was just a sprout – a small triangular stripe of green slowly but steadily converting water and sunlight into millimetres of growth.

Alek developed the habit of measuring it with a ruler every morning while Deryn was still napping or otherwise occupied. Despite its capricious nature, it was still just a house plant and thus didn't require too much effort from its new owner, but Alek found it somewhat soothing to see that he was making progress with this Darwinist experiment.

It was unclear, however, whether this would continue for long.

"Are you still bent on that barking mad idea of yours?" asked Deryn that morning, yawning desperately over her cup of tea.

She was already in her male outfit and spoke to him in Dylan's voice to brush up on it after an evening of positively girlish behaviour, but nevertheless Alek had no idea how could anyone in their right mind believe that his Deryn was anything but a tomboyish girl. The more time he spent with her when she didn't need to pretend to be anyone else, the more he believed that all the people they worked with were simply too polite to tell Mr. Dylan Sharp they could see right through her awkward disguise.

"Well, it's not as mad as pretending to be a boy to join an airship's crew, now is it?" said Alek, earning a crooked smile from his fiancée.

"Still, it's a wee eccentric, even for a sodding Clanker, to take a house plant on a mission. Although, technically, it's not very Clanker-like, of course," Deryn added thoughtfully, and then giggled: "Unless that Clanker is off his gears."

"I thought we had a deal – so I'm planning to honour it."

"Ach, you royals and your sense of honour!" Deryn sighed, although it was clear she was pleased with his attitude. "Nothing especially dishonourable in giving it to one of Dr. Barlow's assistants while we're away, though, is it?"

That day at noon they were departing for their first London Zoological Society mission in quite a while. An airship was going to take them across the ocean to Paraguay where a Darwinist rebellion was about to overthrow the Clanker puppet regime. So far, however, the government held and even hosted a renowned scientist who was undertaking some geological experiments in the countryside. The Society suspected he carried with him the blueprints for a much-rumoured new Clanker machine, and they wanted to take a good look at it to prepare a counter-invention before the machine went to mass production. During the last meeting of the Society Dr. Barlow said she thought Alek was perfect for the job because of his deep understanding of Clanker culture and science, and Dylan was perfect for the job because he was obviously going to join the mission one way or another no matter what Dr. Barlow thought.

Alek had every intention to take the little plant with him: not because of the slightly psychopathic sense of honour, Deryn suspected, but to prove to her that he could take care of it whether they were in a comfortable London apartment or in the subtropical climate. It was a stubborn male thing, the way she saw it, but then again, she enjoyed stubborn male things herself.

"Oh, but it is," said Alek solemnly, "for I fear I might not live down the shame of such an act of cowardice."

"Once we arrive there, it might take us more than a couple of days to reach the rebels' base, find the barking boffin with the blueprints and escape back to our ship," Deryn reminded him. "I hope you're not intending to keep the plant around for all this, using it as part of your camouflage?"

"But it's a week's journey to Paraguay itself, so I still get to spend more time with it that way, don't I?"

"You know, I'm getting a wee bit jealous of that plant now", she confessed with a grin.

"You shouldn't! It's still a couple of inches away from properly competing with you for my attention. It is most ungentlemanlike for a Clanker to court a plant so young."

When an argument descended into the pits of banter, it was useless to try and keep it alive.

"Ach, you're a stubborn daft Clanker no matter if you're melding gears or meddling with plants, aren't you?" said Deryn and kissed him softly before going out of the room to finish packing.

Alek grinned and couldn't help shouting: "No, I'm not!" in her general direction.

* * *

The plant was about a foot high now – several thin wide leaves sprouted from the stem in several directions, and the stem itself seemed too frail to support the whole intricate botanical construction.

Deryn Sharp was also uncharacteristically frail, noted the plant's caretaker, who at the moment was leading her through the rainforest several miles away from the airship where the said plant could be found. She had one of her arms spread across Alek's shoulders and favoured her right leg, holding at her side a bloodied rag that had recently been a part of her shirt. Alek had to maintain a pace that was too fast for his wounded companion but too slow for his own liking, so he had two reasons at once to be displeased.

The mission was a spectacular failure. Yes, they successfully managed to infiltrate the scientist's mansion, steal the blueprints and escape into the forest without getting caught, but any mission which involved Deryn getting shot with several pellets from an ancient-looking Clanker gun was a spectacular failure to Alek.

"Wait… wait, wait a wee bit," she moaned quietly before freeing her arm and collapsing against a massive tree.

And it looked like the situation might still get worse.

"Deryn, we can't stop!" Alek grabbed her shoulder, his voice pleading. "We shook them off, but they know these woods much better and they're much faster, considering our state. They might still catch us! We absolutely have to reach _Andromeda_ as soon as possible!"

"I don't feel the pain anymore."

"What… what do you mean? Is it a good thing?"

Something told him it wasn't even before Deryn did.

"I don't feel half of my stomach and my whole right side, in fact. It's like there's a gaping hole in my body. And it also seems to be expanding. So I'm afraid it's a very, very, barking very bad thing."

She cautiously took the rag away from the wounded area with a slightly trembling hand and winced when she saw what became of it. Alek immediately felt his heart pounding in his ears and inhaled sharply, his face a mask of disgust. Her fine white skin around the three bloodied wounds where the pellets entered her body took a nasty, unnatural greenish colour and the wounds themselves oozed yellowish pus.

"Oh, blisters," whispered Deryn and shut her eyes with such visible effort as if she wanted to unsee it.

"What is it?" demanded Alek, fearing the answer as much as its absence.

"Waxroot poison. A Darwinist discovery so ancient nobody actually uses it anymore. They must have coated the bullets in it, the bum-rags!" She seemed to remember about the possibility of being heard by a wrong pair of ears at the very last moment and lowered her voice to a whisper.

"What does it do? What can _we_ do?!" Feeling absolutely helpless, he snatched the rag and desperately scrubbed on the squishy pus just to keep his hands busy, just to keep doing something.

Deryn stopped him, softly putting her unnaturally cold hand on his arm. Confused and frightened, Alek stared into her brilliant blue eyes, in which he read those very same fear and confusion, but also unbending resolve.

"Now listen to me, your princeliness..."

"I am _not_ abandoning you to save myself! Never!" This time it was Alek's turn to try and keep his voice down, because he didn't like at all what he thought she was about to say.

"Ach, just you try!" snapped Deryn, and he stopped short, feeling quite embarrassed for misunderstanding her. "Noone's abandoning anyone here. Listen. Waxroot poison is cheap and easy to produce, but it is also spreading quite slowly. These wee pellets will eventually kill me, no doubt…

"Don't say that."

"Shut yer gob. These pellets will eventually kill me if they _stay_ there, letting the poison spread through my body. That's why we… that's why _you_ have to take them out. Now."

"Oh-Mein-Gott-no," breathed out Alek immediately, without even thinking.

Blood was playing a surreal marching tune in his ears as he looked at Deryn's wounded side once again. He thought he saw the greenish colour expanding its borders right before his eyes, but he was probably imagining things. The mere idea of him getting anywhere close to inner parts of Deryn's body, of him cutting her open and meddling with that fragile, mysterious anatomy, was both frightening and utterly repulsing.

"Do we have the time to reach the airship and ask Dr. Shelbourne to do it?" he asked, biting his lip.

"No, Alek," Deryn softly replied. "I'm afraid we do not."

"Is there a way we can slow the poison's spreading?"

"Only by taking the pellets out."

"I see."

Even despite the fog and confusion of this completely unexpected, gut-wrenching situation, Alek noted that Deryn hadn't raised her voice or tried to push him. She knew what it felt like to him, and even though her life was in mortal danger, she didn't descend into any sort of hysteria.

And it was at that moment that he realized how ridiculous he'd been, even thinking about the effectivity of her male disguise. It wasn't the suit or the pants or the low voice that made people around Deryn Sharp adamant she was in fact Dylan Sharp. It was her attitude, her sometimes reckless bravery and stalwart determination that wiped any suspicion from any potential doubter's mind. And even though she was the living proof that those qualities should no longer be attributed to one specific gender, Deryn Sharp had always been twice the man Alek was.

Here was she, afraid to somehow harm his precious inner structure while facing imminent death, and here was he, too squeamish to get his hands dirty to save the girl he claimed he loved.

"Oh, Mein Gott," he repeated and automatically crossed his heart with his eyes shut. Then he looked at Deryn, who was still quietly watching him, beads of sweat slowly gathering on her pale forehead. "Give me your whiskey."

She grinned with her usual boyish charm, and Alek felt his heart flutter despite all hell being about to break loose. Then Deryn handed him her ever-present flask, and he motioned for her to lie down on his jacket after spreading it on the grass.

More than a drop of whiskey ended up in Alek's throat. He was never a fan of his fiancée's drink of choice, but at a time like that even the most expensive, delicate wine was unlikely to help him steady his nerves more than the liquid fire from Deryn's homeland. He used some more whiskey to sterilize what seemed to be the most suitable instrument in their possession – the long, thin knife with an intricately carved handle.

As he was wiping the skin around the triangle of bullet holes clear of blood and pus with the newly-torn rag and most of the remaining whiskey, he kept stealing nervous glances at Deryn, whose eyes were half-closed but still looked straight at him.

"You'll have to guide me."

"Won't be the first time," she smiled weakly. She was now sweating profusely and definitely looked even paler than usual. "Hey, Alek?"

"Yes?"

"Don't be afraid. Just imagine I'm a wee moose."

He felt the corners of his mouth rising up against his will. It was the last time they did so for quite a long time.

There was an astonishing amount of blood, more than Alek had ever imagined. It hid under all the sickly yellowish pus, constantly trying to escape outside in unsteady, chaotic streams. He would scrape the nasty, poison-produced substance with the knife, and the blood would flow, sending shivers down his sweaty spine. He tried to soak it in what cotton wool they had but it never looked like it was helping much.

Then there were all those vulnerable-looking fleshy innards hiding under the flesh he cut and forced aside with the blade that trembled in his hands. He was scared to even get close to them with the sharp side of his knife, and yet he had to carefully examine those that lay on the projected paths of the pellets. It took Alek every bit of his courage to keep rummaging inside Deryn as if she was a Clanker mechanism in dire need of maintenance, and it took him all his will to keep forcing down the nausea that jumped up his throat not once or twice. The only good bit was that the poison still numbed Deryn's senses, and she didn't feel any pain at all from his clumsy actions.

He found the first pellet relatively quickly and then discovered he had no means of taking it out because the rough little sphere, coal-black with a sickly-green coating, refused to be simply picked up by the tip of his bloodied blade. So Alek dived into his travelling bag of tools and took the pair of fine silvery pincers, wasting the very last drops of whiskey to make it at least a little bit cleaner to serve his needs. Obviously, Dr. Shelbourne would have to make sure he hadn't done any damage to her organs or brought an infection once they reached _Andromeda_, but the poison was the pressing concern, and Alek decided he would neglect some of the others at this point.

It took some time to find the second pellet, but it was the third that gave him the most trouble – and by that time Alek was already sweating a lot more than Deryn. Not only was it lodged deeper than the first two – it was also in an area that wasn't poisoned enough to dull Deryn's pain. When he awkwardly twisted the knife, searching for the bullet, she loudly groaned through her teeth. When the next clumsy assault occurred, she had to stuff his jacket's sleeve inside her mouth and bite it, battling a sensation so strong the tears streamed from the corner of her eyes.

And when the third pellet was successfully fished out of her body, and Alek finally allowed himself to crawl away on all fours and retch prodigally into the grass, Deryn weakly mumbled something about her sewing kit. It took him a few moments and a deep, long breath to realize that he was also expected to stitch up the wounds, and he felt that the mysterious force that kept him going had already all but expired.

* * *

It was a withered wreck of a dark brown-and-yellow plant drooping down one side of the pot – either dehydrated or overhydrated, burned or frozen, but dead all the same. Alek didn't expect to see it again in the hall of their building after finally returning home. Frankly, he even forgot he had a plant by the time he and Deryn had staggered into the secluded base of the revolutionary forces where _Andromeda_ had been hiding.

"Good afternoon, Mr. Hohenberg," bowed the concierge when Alek walked through the doors. "You and Mr. Sharp have been absent for quite a while, sir, so it would take me a few moments to collect all your mail. If you kindly wait a minute…"

With that she busied herself with opening some drawers and extracting flat envelopes and several pudgy packages intended for Alek and Deryn. Alek didn't pay the old lady too much attention, staring at the flowerpot instead.

"Is that…?"

"Oh, yes, Mr. Hohenberg, it is, erm, yours as well, apparently. Someone brought it here in this precise condition, I'm afraid, and it was clearly a bit late to save it. I thought I'd keep it, however – maybe it holds some sentimental value to you of which I'm not aware – but, at any rate, it wasn't my place to get rid of it without your say on the matter. Or, maybe, if you're as confused as I was, it was actually intended for Mr. Sharp? Is he alright, if I may inquire?"

Alek opened his mouth when the doors opened again, and Deryn marched in with her usual swagger and a fresh _Evening Standard_ under her arm – the one she absolutely had to go and get from the news-stall on the opposite side of the street, apparently.

"Fine and fit as a fiddle, dear Mrs. Robinson," she proclaimed in Dylan's voice and gave her an exaggerated bow before her eyes fell on the plant. "Crivvens! Is that what I think it is?"

"The very same," Alek smiled, then wrapped one of his arms around the pot and took some of the packages from the concierge in the other hand, letting Deryn take the rest of the mail.

"Sorry, maybe I should have listened to you and left the plant at the Society or asked Mrs. Robinson to look after it," he added when they reached their flat. "The fellows from _Andromeda_ must have discovered it and sent it here while we were at the hospital."

"Blisters, Alek, sod the barking plant!" sighed Deryn, rolling her eyes to the ceiling. "You got to feel what I wanted you to feel a lot, lot closer than I ever intended, and you were barking brilliant all the way! What's one daft plant to me now?"

"Compost?" he suggested with a wry smile.

"Ach, come here, ya daftie", she snorted, not at all unhappily, and hugged his waist. "Let's go to your bedroom and I'll introduce you to some more advanced concepts of Darwinism if these sodding new stitches won't fall apart…"


End file.
